Space station gets tenants; Global Surveyor sends movies from Mars
By Randal Jackson
CNN.com Senior Editor
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From left: Sergei Krikalev, Yuri Gidzenko and Bill Shepherd clasp hands after boarding the space station.
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(CNN) -- The year 2000 closed on a high note for NASA and its International Space Station partners, with a long-term crew at last taking up residence on the orbital outpost.
The three-member multinational crew arrived at the $60 billion outpost-in-progress in early November. The first order of business: naming their new home "Alpha." The station doesn't have a permanent name yet, but mission controllers agreed to let the impromptu moniker stick -- at least through the first crew's tour of duty.
The United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe expect to complete the space station by 2006, at an estimated cost of $100 billion.
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The United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe expect to complete the space station by 2006, at an estimated cost of $100 billion.
With more active probes and satellites stationed in space than ever before, NASA seemed to unveil fresh wonders of the solar system on a weekly basis.
No images were more striking than the dusty, pockmarked surface of asteroid Eros, thoroughly photographed by the NEAR-Shoemaker space probe.
Cold, remote and forbidding, the stark world of an asteroid was revealed as uninviting yet strangely beautiful.
Closer to home, Earth's red neighbor offered up new surprises and mysteries.
NASA scientists stunned the scientific world in June with pictures of distinct gullies and deltas on Mars, apparently formed by the recent action of liquid water. The features were revealed in pictures taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.
A closer inspection of the presumed water sources is high on the priority list for future Mars missions, beginning with the "Mars 2001 Odyssey" orbiter, scheduled to launch in 2001.
While not yet confirmed, the discovery bolstered hopes that the red planet could harbor simple life and someday host human colonists.
The dismal failure of the Mars Polar Lander at the end of 1999 continued to dominate headlines in 2000. NASA announced in March that the loss of the probe was likely due to inadequate software design and testing -- in other words, human error.
The outlook turned cheerier in October, when NASA unveiled its revamped Mars exploration strategy, including plans to send eight or more probes to Mars over the next two decades to search for evidence of water or life.
The fleet of orbiters, landers and rovers would employ new technologies that expand their scientific capabilities, save fuel and improve their chances of surviving on the red planet, NASA officials said.
The shifting fortunes of Russia's venerable Mir space station also was a recurring theme in the news. A Netherlands-based private consortium attempted to keep the station afloat for tourism and entertainment enterprises, including a proposed "Survivor"-like game in space.
But in November, Russia's Cabinet deemed the 14-year-old symbol of Soviet technological prowess too decrepit and expensive to maintain. Mir was condemned, and is expected to face a fiery destruction via a controlled plunge into the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean in February 2001.
One of the year's most dramatic astronomical developments came in August, when scientists revealed details of nine previously unknown planets orbiting stars relatively close to Earth.
They include the second extra-solar multi-planetary system ever found and bring the total number of known planets circling stars other than our own sun to 50.
One of the new discoveries was a planet orbiting the star Epsilon
Eridani that could provide answers to questions about the possible existence of life on other planets.
"It's a very exciting discovery because ... the star itself is the
closest star for which a planet has ever been discovered," said Geoff Marcy, a University of California professor. "It's only 10 light years away. In the next 100 or 200 years, it will be one of the first stars humans visit."
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